FORMACION BASADA EN COMPETENCIAS
4.2. DEFINICION DE COmpETENCIA
M
ICKEYG
JERRIS11 Introducing remarks
The two group discussions concerning sheep held during the LowInputBreeds workshop in Wageningen, March 2011 had few participants, and those that were there are all involved in the LowInputBreeds project as scientists. The researchers discussed what challenges they find in sheep production and what strategies would be the best to counter them. During these discussions some ethical considerations were identified and the facilitator tried to challenge the scientists to include these considerations into their discussion of perceived challenges and possible solutions. An important limitation of the discussions was that the participants only focused on Mediterranean sheep production, especially Greek sheep pro- duction. The participants stressed that challenges and solutions were context-specific, so that different regions in Europe face different challenges and evaluate the solutions differ- ently
2 Challenges to sheep production and possible solutions
The overarching consideration was how to organize sheep production in an economically sustainable way. Several other goals were also seen as important, including animal welfare, maintaining local breeds, low environmental impact and others, but all participants stressed that these could only be solved to the extent that the economic concerns were addressed. The participants identified areas within the production systems where improvements could be made that would either increase production efficiency or add extra value to the end product that would also enable a higher degree of animal welfare and lower environmental impact. Below they have been listed as they pertain to the animals, to the products or to the environment
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Prof. Dr. Mickey Gjerris, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Science, Institute of Food and Resource Eco- nomics/Consumption, Health and Ethics Unit, Rolighedsvej 25 , 1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark, Tel +45 353- 32165, E-Mail [email protected], http://www.bioethics.kvl.dk/mgj/index.htm
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› Heat: Either breed animals that are more heat-tolerant or change production systems to allow for cooling of the animals.
› Parasites: Breed parasite resistant animals— specifically to gastrointestinal nematodes— combined with different strategies for feed and grazing areas to avoid disease. A combi- nation of breeding, controlling feed and environmental factors were seen as the most ef- ficient.
› Mastitis: Breed mastitis resistant animals combined with different strategies for feed and grazing areas to avoid disease. The combination of breeding, controlling feed and envi- ronmental factors was again seen as the most efficient.
› Environment: The advantages and disadvantages of both indoor and outdoor production were discussed in relation to animal welfare. Indoor housing was seen as facilitating the goals of reducing heat stress and parasites, but at the same time created other problems for the animals, especially a reduction of the possibility of the animal to perform its spe- cies-specific behaviour. These discussions reflected the often found discrepancies be- tween different paradigms of animal welfare. These will be discussed in section 3.
› Species specific behaviour: The time for weaning the lambs was one of the parameters that were heavily discussed. To some participants early weaning—seven days as in France—both constituted the most efficient production method and ensured the welfare of the animals, where others found that later weaning—40 days as in Greece—both gave better animal health, allowed the animals to experience the maternal bond between sheep and lamb and made economic sense due to the better health of the animals.
› Animal integrity: The notion of animal integrity was connected with the idea that it could be important to allow species-specific behaviour even though the animals deprived of the opportunity would not have negative experiences. One could imagine that lambs weaned early in France would not have a negative effect on their mental states, but from an animal integrity view this would still be ethically problematic. From an ethical point of view this distinction marks the border between animal welfare considerations and ani- mal ethics considerations.
Product
› Production efficiency: Economic sustainability of production was the overarching chal- lenge. The goal of breeding initiatives was seem as to ensure increased production effi-
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ciency—perhaps in combination with other measures such as changes in diet or envi- ronment—without damaging the value of the product through lower consumer evalua- tion of the product.
› Product quality: One way to increase the value of the product was seen as increasing the physical quality of the product. Parameters such as taste and tenderness were men- tioned. Again this was seen as something that could both be reached through breeding to change the animals or changing the environment through diet. A general problem with using breeding strategies or changing environmental or dietary factors that was of- ten mentioned was that this approach carries the risk of diminishing the differences be- tween local breeds and local products. Such an approach could cause problems both with regard to the genetic diversity of the sheep population but also with regard to the expectance of the consumers to be able to get a local product that distinguishes itself from other products. The local nature of the product was thus also seen as a quality in- herent to the product – albeit less tangible than the physical quality. In the same way more intensified production systems were seen as entailing advantages for the produc- tion efficiency and sometimes even animal welfare, they were also seen as going against the whole idea of low input production that to some consumers is seen as a quality as well.
Environmental impact
In general there was agreement among the participants in the group that sheep production is an environmentally friendly way to produce meat. The main reasons for this is the exten- sive nature of the production systems that often adapt to the local environment and the utilization of marginal agricultural land that otherwise would go unused. Advantages could perhaps be gained through breeding for animals with lower CO2-emissions through more effective digestion. These advantages could also be sought through changes in feed and would probably call for a more intensive production. Intensification could be counter- productive to the environmental profile of the production. From the perspective of the re- searchers present at the workshop it seemed as if changes in the present production could move either way in this area and would be dependent both on consumer acceptance, local customs and the knowledge level of the farmers. Both increased breeding efforts and inten- sified production systems were seen as possibilities to promote the environmental profile of the industry, but also as going counter to values underlying the low input production sys-
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Proceedings of the First LowInputBreeds Symposium, March 15 & 16, 2011, Wageningen, The Netherlandstems. Participants generally acknowledged that changes would have to be accepted by both farmers and consumers and therefore should be introduced slowly.
Regional differences would play a large role in which strategies would be acceptable to pro- ducers and consumers. There was general agreement that what was labelled “sensible in- tensification” through breeding and management changes would be more acceptable in Southern Europe than in Northern Europe.
3 Ethical considerations
The main ethical problems that can be lifted from the discussions at the workshop about creating greater economic sustainability in sheep production in Southern Europe are that: A: There are different views on what is animal welfare. Thus what can be seen as increased animal welfare from the perspective of the researchers—breeding for heat resistance or in- tensification of production systems through increased housing of animals—from another perspective can be seen as diminishing the natural species-specific behaviour of the animals and thus decreasing the welfare. An elaborate scoring system for evaluating animal welfare based on an interpretation of the classic definition of the five freedoms was suggested in one of the presentations. The discussion clearly revealed that this understanding presumed a certain understanding of the concept of animal welfare that was not shared among the researchers.
B: The notion of animal welfare as only a part of what is ethically relevant in relation to the animal is not a notion that resonates in the researchers. They readily accepted that notions such as integrity or naturalness plays a role both for consumers and producers, but found it hard to incorporate this into the research aims of the project.
C: Using breeding and management strategies to obtain what was labelled ‘sensible intensi- fication’ that can lead to both higher production efficiency, higher animal welfare—at least from some perspectives—and lower environmental impact is not necessarily acceptable for producers and consumers because of 1: The loss of local breeds and traditions, 2: Perceived loss in product quality and 3: The loss of values underlying low input production.
D: All changes in production systems must at the same time lead to an increased economic sustainability of the industry. For the researchers this constituted a fact that although regret- table was undeniable. The search for improvement in e.g. animal welfare is therefore limited to win-win situations with the economic factor always gaining the upper hand. Ethical con-
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siderations thus become something that is done within the perceived economic interests of different stakeholders and not something that can be used to frame the economic activity.